Chapter 358: Why is his nickname scary? (Edited)

On the last weekend before the Christmas vacations, Hogwarts students from third year upwards were able to visit Hogsmeade again....

Well, except for a certain "Boy Who Lived" who shall remain nameless.

This time to Hogsmeade, Fish was not far behind, as he needed to go to Honeydukes and buy Christmas presents for the others, and of course, most of the students going to Hogsmeade were doing so for the same purpose.

As Fish walked with Hermione and the others through the cast iron gates guarded by Dementors, they saw the group scatter to the side in panic and hide much farther away than they had last time.

"That's the first time I've ever known anyone to scare a Dementor like that..." exclaimed Percy, "I've been told that even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was only able to lead them on after promising them the ability to attack Muggles at will."

"Speaking of which... Why do they always call Voldemort by the name El-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named nya? Isn't Voldemort already his nickname nya?"

?ω?

Fish had wondered that a long time ago, knowing Voldemort by his original name, so he naturally assumed that Voldemort was a nickname for Tom Riddle.

It wasn't strange to have a nickname, Fish had been used to calling people by their nicknames from the beginning, but giving another nickname to someone who already had one seemed odd to the kitten.

And when Fish suddenly mentioned Voldemort's name, the little wizards around him let out a gasp.

Confused even more, Fish asked, "Why do you seem to be so afraid of hearing his nickname?"

"Uh... because... He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.... It's scary?"

At Fish's question, everyone was also a little confused, because their parents had raised them not to pronounce Voldemort's name, but rather The-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or The Dark Lord.

Of course, if it was a Slytherin, they usually called him the Dark Lord.

"Scary?" Fish cocked his head to the side, confused, "But hadn't Harry already defeated him? Fish defeated him too, and defeated him three ... no, twice!"

(●`?′●)

Fish held up three fingers proudly and quickly withdrew one.

The cat suddenly remembered that the fact that the diary was a Horcrux was to be kept secret from others, and that it had actually been Lochlin who had done the damage to the diary in the first place, not him.

"Fi, Fish... you, have you seen Al-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?!"

Hufflepuff's Zacharius Smith stammered and shouted, as the others were taken aback by Fish's words, but not as excited as he was.

Zacharias was a tall, thin, yellow-haired, long-nosed boy who, despite being a Hufflepuff, was not very popular in school because Zacharias was always questioning things and had always had an arrogant attitude, not so much befitting a Hufflepuff, but a bit like a Slytherin.

Of course, he was very kind to the cat, and it was purely his distrustful instinct that made him exclaim.

"Huh? Fish didn't say nya?".

(??ω??)

The kitten didn't take Zacharias' startled cry to heart and, after scratching his head and carefully recalling it to make sure that neither Professor McGonagall nor Dumbledore had asked him to keep it a secret, he spoke up to explain himself.

"In first year, Voldemort possessed that stinky Quirrell and tried to come to Hogwarts to steal a nya stone, then Fish ran into him twice, and that year he set the Forbidden Forest on fire."

Fish said, pointing his finger at Hermione, who was standing next to him.

"Hermione and Ron know about it too, and Harry."

Seeing everyone's eyes turn to her, Hermione quickly nodded and confirmed, "That's right, Quirrell was possessed by the fragmented soul of You-Know-Who, he was trying to help him steal the Philosopher's Stone from Nicolas Flamel and use it to resurrect the Dark Lord, and he had already broken into Gringotts once to do so, Professor Dumbledore brought the Philosopher's Stone to Hogwarts just to better protect it."

With Hermione's comment, everyone also remembered the Gringotts invasion two years earlier, and the final finals party, when Dumbledore had inexplicably given extra points to Harry and the others.

"Remember the big dog that fought the giant squid? He's the one that guarded the hallway on the third floor, where the Philosopher's Stone was kept."

Ron also added on the sidelines, anyway, Fish already said it, so it doesn't matter if he said a little more.

Everyone didn't doubt Fish's words at first, and after Ron and Hermione confirmed it, they even let out bursts of exclamation.

"But Fish, what you were dealing with at that moment was just the remnant soul of the Dark Lord. Only Dumbledore can deal with the real Dark Lord."

Still, Percy thought more sympathetically, and reminded Fish in time not to underestimate Voldemort.

But that's not what Fish was thinking....

"So, Voldemort only has one remnant soul left, why are you still afraid of him?"

?ω?

"Because even though You-Know-Who has failed, there are still Death Eaters left, and they are always waiting for the Dark Lord to rise again, and Sirius Black, who escaped from Azkaban, is one of them."

Percy went on to explain, and also answered the question Fish had asked at the beginning.

"As for the Volt... Volt... well, that's the name, it's said that because the Dark Lord cast a spell on that name, anyone who called him by name would be detected, so when we were fighting him, everyone used the term.... You-Know-Who or Dark Lord instead."

"But...his real name, isn't it Tom Marvolo Riddle? why would he spell his nickname?"

(●?ω?●)?

The kitten had another question, what was with this strange penchant for hexing his "nickname"?

"So that's the real name of You-Know-Who?!"

With the exception of a few Weasleys, everyone, including Hermione, was puzzled, few of them, even their parents, knew Voldemort's real name.

"Yes, didn't Fish find Voldemort's diary last year? It had his name written in it."

Dumbledore had already mentioned the diary, so there was no need to keep it a secret.

The crowd remembered, and it was well known among Hogwarts students that Fish kept a lot of little secrets, so after a brief moment of surprise, everyone quickly calmed down.

And once they had calmed down, their curiosity about Voldemort increased irresistibly.

After all, aside from the Muggle-born students, they had all grown up hearing horror stories about Voldemort, and Harry's story was rather vague, so they couldn't help but want to know more when they heard that Fish had faced Voldemort.

At everyone's questioning, Fish didn't hide anything, except for the Horcrux thing explained by Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, the kitten honestly told all the other things.

Although he was only listening to his own experiences, and although everyone knew that Voldemort was in an extremely weak state, the fear of Voldemort subconsciously diminished after seeing the cat speak so calmly.